I watched Public Enemies today. It might be a bit of a stretch to say this but the moment Billie Holiday came into the scene, my heart stopped and I was reminded of what I have been missing all along: the kind of stare lovers hold with their lips unmoving to the sound of warm silence which only the heart understands while the mind drifts, sedated with opiate conversations. Wordless; formless; needless. Their world brings them far beyond meanings foretold.

I’ve been rethinking my priorities for the past few weeks. Mainly because the recent past still follows me like my shadow. It’s a bizarre thing, to see how one messes up over and over again regardless of cause and intention. It’s almost like a movie, where you watch someone who acts and looks so much like you doing and being the very last thing you’ve ever wanted to be, and its playback function is on auto-pilot that you just want to rip the tape out of the back of your head.

But I don’t. I just wipe my snot and cook instead. And sleep. Sleep like it all never happened and it’s just a nightmare that ends with your arms wrapped around mine as you made me face the window and said, “Look, the sun is up,” or something like that.

Which reminds me, I really need a chopping board.

I’ve started to go to the gym again, to get that seratonin running since I’m fed up with them changing my meds and work can only drown me so much. I don’t know if you remember the deal about depression but what you did that night made it worse. I hate the ambiguity at the end of our conversation. I hate the hope you gave me because I wanted it so badly after how you shot me down for what you couldn’t handle, or didn’t want to handle. And no, there is no personal trainer.

Because of the way the conversation went, it pains me to call it a resolution. I refuse to believe that you’re that selfish, or in any way manipulative. I refuse to believe that that was what made things worthwhile. After that, for a week or so, I reveled in the lack of finality. Yet as the days went by and what I thought was regular everyday busyness seemed to evolve into something more concrete; this block of silence, a wall of evidence of what you did not want to see or feel between us. It felt like 2006 all over again.

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I read what you wrote the other day.

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I’m still surviving. With no one telling me what to do and when to do. I’ve been floating adrift with all these strange, wondrous ideas in the past couple of years and I took your words as a cue to just stop floating and anchor by a port–something I’ve never done because of anyone before.

It’s not for you, mind you, it’s for me. I can’t say I am thriving but I am almost happy sometimes, by myself.

Almost; that part of me is still with you, like how I believe I still hold yours hostage.

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You are no longer a priority. Like you said, there are bigger things in life.

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But my heart still feels the world for you. It lives in the memories of you.

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This is part of what I mean when I say I love you.

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I’m making believe that you’re in my arms
though I know you’re so far away
Making believe I’m talking to you,
wish you could hear what I say

And here in the gloom of my lonely room
we’re dancing like we used to do
Making believe is just another way of dreaming,
so till my dreams come true
I’ll whisper “Good night”,
turn out the light, and kiss my pillow
Making believe it’s you

I’m making believe that you’re in my arms
though I know you’re so far away
Making believe I’m talkin’ to you,
wish you could hear what I say
And here in the gloom of my lonely room
we’re dancing like we used to do
Making believe is just another way of dreamin’,
so till my dreams come true
I’ll whisper “Good night”,
turn out the light, and kiss my pillow
Making believe it’s you

And here in the gloom of my lonely room
we’re dancing like we used to do
Making believe is just another way of dreamin’,
so till my dreams come true
I’ll whisper “Good night”,
turn out the light, and kiss my pillow

Making believe it’s you